What can a family of four make in a week?

So it has been a week since we posted. I know it is boring to come to a blog and not see anything new, but it doesn't mean we haven't been making art! So this post should tide you over for a while in case we don't get back here for another week.

Let's start with today, Father's Day (HFD to all the other dads out there). You know I have 2 of the coolest kids around, so of course I got great homemade HFD gifts! Lily made me a beautiful card to go along with her gifts. Lucy made me this "Power Numbers Wristband"(you'll have to wait for Knitty's next issue for more explanation).

Both kids made me a HFD PowerPoint slide! How many Dads got one of those, let alone 2!?!? Here they are, Lucy's and Lily's.

Last Saturday we participated in World Wide KIP day. We met a group of the usual suspects at Mama Java's, then moved on to a pizza joint before closing down the neighborhood Borders. Here are Lily & Kiki working on items to be seen later.

And here is Lucy working on her next ballet tee.

I had the camera, so no picture of me, but here is what I worked on.

It is a necklace that I designed, inspired by a dress neckline in a magazine & using the Labyrinth technique by Debbie New. It is made from a heathered grey baby alpaca yarn that Kiki dyed with Kool-Aid for me (I picked the colors). Back view below.

Later in the week I used the rest of the yarn to make this bag.

I designed this "2X4 Round Bag" too, also known as "Kate's Sphere". This is in the same vein as my pattern that will be in the Knitty Man Issue, coming soon. I will be writing these patterns up for sale on the website in the coming days. We will even have some free patterns there!

Kiki was a slacker this week and only made 3 Teva Durham sweaters. Have the rest of you bought this book yet? Jaclyn did, but thinks that a new job combined with a summer move is an excuse for not making these awesome patterns.

Left-to-right: Lily in a ballet tee dress (dress modification added by Kiki) made from Idena "Carisio" tape; Kiki in a ballet tee made from GGH "Celine" tape; Lucy in a ballet tape in the "Carisio" again. All purchased during Jessica's big sale. Lily's dress was lengthened with a little of the "Celine" and some R2 "Paper". Very Summery, No?

So Lily finished her KIP projects this week. One was this drop-stitch collar out of Brown Sheep Bulky.

This is her own design. Doesn't it look fabulous in the AZ sunshine? Little warm for those 105 degree days, though! It will be great this winter or in the mountains. Orange is her favorite color.

She also "finished" half a pair of socks!

She used Mom's sock pattern (coming soon to dvd) to make her first sock! The gold is Elsbeth Lavold "Silky Wool" and the red is Koigu.

Lucy is still working on her socks. She started a new pair this week out of Cascade Fixation.

This family knows the horrors of Second Sock Syndrome!

Kiki started a lace scarf as a surprise for a beautiful friend.

It's her own "Turtle" pattern, out of some random Japanese laceweight wool she had lying around the house.

Steve finished "Pyramid Bag 2" for his jealous wife.

This was a slight modification from my original design, made from Lopi & some other wool. The outside picture is from our favorite place, Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

The title is "Shade".

The inside tag is this self-portrait. Solarized & toned blue.

I made some pictures this week. I finished my roll of black and white on my favorite subjects. Here are some family portraits, Steve style.

Kiki

Lily

Lucy

Also on the roll were some pictures of my niece Cali. Who can resist a cute baby?

Finally this week, I did some sprucing up of our website. Haven't got that Illanna urge to re-do the blog template every 3 posts, but I did start on some changes to the website. We are trying to make it More Gracious and Extra Luscious. If you don't like it, find your way to the old-school version. It is still there.

We were all "tagged" by Mel. As a rule, we don't participate in chain-letters (Kiki thinks they are illegal). Probably the reason for our rotten luck. However, we think reading is important (coming soon the LG report on the library opening IN OUR VERY OWN APARTMENT!). So here are some of our favorite authors, etc. We won't tag anyone else, but if there are 20 people that read this that haven't been tagged, feel free to answer the questions on Mel's blog. Then send us a dollar.

Steve

....and now, a word from KIKILUSCIOUS.

Hi, all.

Books are important to us. We read them. Lucy used to eat them (nothing like a little fibre in the diet), and we even make our own. All of us write stories, we draw and photograph illustrations, we keep records and journals, we even keep a crazy blog. Books come before groceries in our budget, and when we moved to AZ, the moving company refused to believe that we had a wall 15' long and 8' high FULL of books, and that was only one room's worth. They underestimated our house by 10,000 pounds of books, and ended up having to move the car separately.

The first (and only) thing that we have unpacked in the 10 months that we have been here are books (OK, yarn too). Why, just today, to celebrate HFD, I gave Stephen two books, Tarantula by Bob Dylan and Collages by Anais Nin. Sure, I want to read them too, so what?

Starting with the youngsters, Lily Grace's favorite author is Edgar Allan Poe. She weighed down her backpack all year carrying volumes of his work to school every day, just in case she would need some reading material between digging at recess. She also reads lots of science and nature books, and purchased her first Charles Darwin this year. And she is happy to read anything by Roald Dahl.

Lucy Jane's tastes run more toward history, and historical fiction. Right now, she loves Lewis Carroll and Katherine Lasky. Lawrence Yep is another favorite. The kid reads like she knits - constantly. She wakes up early just to get in some minutes with yarn and her favorite pages. She begs at night for "just a few more minutes" until her eyes close, images of the written word invading her little dreams. Her new library contains 178 books sorted, counted, and listed in her catalog. Many more under the bed, in the closets, in Mom's room, hidden in various bags on doorknobs, and on Sister's shelves.

Steve and I have made the decision not to watch tv. It is for my own protection, as I am a confirmed addict. Our cable isn't plugged in, and we only watch dvd's. Now, truthfully, we watch a lot of dvd's, but no hours are wasted on commercials. When people say to us, "I just don't have time to knit (or write, or create, or paint, or cook, or whatever)," I am always interested to know how much time they DO have for television. Only the newly converted have such righteous indignation. Remember, ADDICTED. To the Western Channel. And thank god for TIVO. Man, I miss TIVO....

You would think, then, that we would be reading much more than usual. But we knit now, which seriously cuts into the reading time. Shout out if you hear me!

Stephen likes picture books. Not by kid's authors, although those are great too (we were relieved when our children were born - our collection of kid's lit was a little creepy for two childless adults), but the ones by his favorite photographers. Man Ray, David LaChappelle, Ellen Von Unwerth.....He DOES read, and possesses a fabulous reading voice. It is my favorite thing, falling asleep listening to him read, and he has read to the kids since before they were born. So, as far as his favorite authors, he loves Chuck Palahniuk, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Sam Lipsyte, Kahlil Gibran (Broken Wings was his first favorite book). Lane Smith's The Happy Hocky Family is his ALL-TIME FAVORITE, though. Check it out, will you?

Steve is especially fond of short story collections. As Stephen King points out, these are becoming a lost art. That is a shame, because there is so much charm in a perfectly wrought book that only takes an evening to devour.

Now, my turn. I don't pretend to know a great deal about literature, and there are very few books in which I do not find something to love, but I do have my preferences. Just this past week, I read The End of the Affair by Graham Greene, Henry and June by Anais Nin, The Stranger by Albert Camus (with a brilliant new translation by Matthew Ward), and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I usually don't read that much in such a short time period, must be why I "ONLY" finished 3 sweaters this week, huh?

Some of my other favorite authors are Dorothy Parker, Edgar Allan Poe (Lily inherited that, I am afraid), Henry D. Thoreau, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (especially Innocent Erendira and Love in the Time of Cholera, which I read almost every year), Oliver Sacks, Susan Sontag, and W. Somerset Maugham (The Moon and Sixpence is on my bedside stack, ready and waiting). Also on the list for this summer, A Tale of Two Cities - Dickens again, Friendly Persuasion - by Jessamyn West, who wrote many books about the strange and wonderful Quaker way of life, and The Mayor of Casterbridge - by Thomas Hardy. That reminds me, there is this perfect little movie based on that book, but the name of the film is The Claim. Milla Jovovich, singing in a Western, what's not to love?

But, hey, it's not all The Classics, people. I LOVE Douglas Coupland (Shampoo Planet changed my life). And I couldn't live without Elizabeth Zimmermann's writings on knitting as a metaphor for life.

I would like to thank the Winchester Public Library for teaching me that books open the world. The Luscious Gracious clan also supports our Phoenix Library, mostly with the large fines we incur.

HEY!!!!

Aren't you sorry that you harassed us about not blogging? LONGEST BLOG EVER!

Signing off,

Kiki